Pretty Girls, With So Much Spirit
by CastorPollux
Summary: Scabior contemplates what he finds so alluring about the pretty girl he found in the woods. Originally only meant to be a one-shot, it seems to be continuing past that.  Movie!Verse
1. Chapter 1

Scabior remembers the scent of her, the subtle sweetness of her perfume that drew his attention when he couldn't see her. She smells the same now, tinged with the anxiety of her own fear, and he thinks _Oh, I'd like to keep you all for myself, you lovely thing. _He briefly considers how he could achieve such a thing.

His suspicion regarding the ugly boy's identity quashes this possibility and where he may have taken them leisurely back to the Ministry, perhaps played his cards right to keep the girl for himself, he realizes that treating this group like any of the others he caught would be a mistake.

The people he works for do not take kindly to wasted time and he does not take kindly to a profit that is ignored based purely upon a lack of foresight. He makes the call quite easily to take them directly to Malfoy Manor.

But still, she is so _pretty_ to look at and he watches her with dark, dark eyes and wets his lips as he inhales her scent. He smiles when she recoils, looks upon him with such evident disgust, and he promises with his looks, the way he grips her arm and digs his fingers in, that were he given more time with her he would enjoy the challenge of changing that expression upon her face.

He's always liked challenges, the chase that sends the blood pumping, and she would be a lovely one to catch.

He lets the thought warm him as he and his Snatchers take the three away from the forest, to deliver them into hands that are most likely certainly more dangerous than his.

Later, when he escapes that house with his life still miraculously intact, curses that mad witch with every ounce that fear and hate can muster, he regrets having to leave her there. He isn't a fool and knows she shall suffer, likely horribly at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange, but he tries to comfort himself with the knowledge that he tried. He had tried to hex the witch (had failed) and would the opportunity presented itself he would have tried to take that girl with him (so he tells himself), that pretty, clever girl with her soft serious eyes and her sweet smelling hair.

He tries to imagine himself as the hero in a story that certainly has none and laughs to himself at the absurdity of it, once his nerves have calmed and he has collected himself enough to pretend that the earlier encounter had not terrified and awed him.

The threat of Voldemort's presence, the thrill of his own success, the terror of Lestrange's madness, and that girl, looking scared but so determined. Beautiful and probably dead by now.

There is a war going on, Scabior is quite certain he is on the winning side and that is all that matters.

Still though, he finds himself hoping she survived. He finds himself hoping to see her again.

He already knows how fast she can run. He looks forward to giving chase.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thank you, to all the people who reviewed. It's given me the confidence to keep going with this and while I really don't know how long I will maintain the inspiration I really do appreciate all the feedback. Thank you! I hope you enjoy a little bit from Hermione's conflicted pov.

* * *

She can still see the word, carved into her skin, even after it's been magicked away and only the memory remains. A lot of things only remain now in memory, that word in her flesh, the color of blood, the voice of a man who'd stood before her too close and asked her name. The memory of how she had lied.

More often than not she finds her memory taking her back to those words and that touch and a promise in his looks so dark that she bit her lip and shivered at the reminder. No one had ever spoken to her like that, regarded her in such an overtly threatening way. Not like that and it wasn't something she would ever have expected, she, the smart one, the clever one, but never particularly the pretty one.

Never gorgeous.

Hermione isn't inclined to think of herself in such a way, is more concerned with knowledge and books and _survival_ than she is neat hair (though it was so much better than it had been when she was young), and her teeth (though they were fixed too now, weren't they). She considers herself quite sensible, even as she still takes the time to dab perfume to the pulse points of her throat. She considers herself careful, though it had been that which attracted his attention in the first place, when he had caught the scent of the delicate fragrance in the dark chill of the forest.

Vanity had given her away and his attraction to her had been received with disgust. He had deserved no less or course for he is repulsive, hateful, evil. The actions he took, his threatening presence, the people he worked for, all of these things made him despicable, worthless in her eyes, and yet-

And yet.

She hates herself for remembering, late at night when Harry and Ron are already asleep, troubled with dreams tainted by their own fears. But she remembers, she cannot stop herself, remembers how close he had stood and the darkness of his eyes and the heat of his body. He is older than she, rougher and crueler and so _different_ that she worries her lip in the dark and wonders just for a minute what it would have been like had he had the chance to bring her closer.

She banishes the thought before it can edge into territory that she is not comfortable contemplating, where the smell of danger cloys too sickly sweet and she can think, _closer_.

And when her dreams take her where her lucid mind refuses to go she wakes guilty and muddled, her reactions slow and hair tousled.

Ron and Harry laugh at her, affectionate and normal, Ron makes a comment that is meant to be flattering but it just comes out awkward before he makes it endearingly worse by trying to cover it up. Harry laughs at him and Hermione smiles tolerantly, full of affectionate love for both of these boys, these young men.

But when she looks at Ron, smiles at him and watches as he blushes and smiles back, she feels guilty.

She tells herself she doesn't know why. She knows she is lying to herself.

_Mudblood_, she remembers.

_Dobby's blood, the frailty of his body_, she remembers.

_Gorgeous_, she remembers.

And the darkness of his eyes, the promise therein, and the feeling, stirring forbidden and unpleasant in her gut.

Unbidden, she runs.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N**: Thank you to all who have reviewed. I'm happy that you've enjoyed it and it's your responses that have made something that was supposed to be a drabble one-shot turn into something a little bit longer than that. Thank you again. This has officially been moved to a work-in-progress status and oh boy, does that make me nervous.

* * *

This is not a fairytale and he is no hero. He smiles at the thought and assures himself that he never wanted to be one in the first place and this is true enough. It takes a special kind of fool to want such a role and he finds it easier to live as a hunter, on the fringes and free from the trappings of glorious expectation.

_We are not fated_, he reminds himself, _we choose our paths, _and Scabior chose his side long ago, chose to make himself a feared thing, and the fact does not particularly bother him.

Usually.

But there is this girl that he cannot get off his mind, this girl who runs and casts curses behind her back and looks at him, her eyes dark with disgust.

He wonders what it would be like were she to look at him another way, with something else behind them, and doesn't bother trying to name the emotion he desires to draw from her.

Instead he tells himself that it doesn't bother him. The cares of a Mudblood were never much concern to him, what should he care?

This life is easy, this life is fun.

He is not a hero. He is not a hero and this was never a love story.

This is what he tells himself when he dreams of her, when those eyes and that mouth and the scent of her skin permeates his moments of slumber, seeps deep and dark into his bones and he wonders if there is not some magic at work here, some dreadfully dark thing that wraps around him and draws him deeper, like a horrible sirens call. Should he sink much deeper he shall surely drown. This is obsession, he knows, and it is dangerous and yet so thrilling, so shameful, that for a moment he indulges and dreams of a life different from this one.

Were he different, were she different, were they not separated by sides and age and class, were she not so clearly better than he and were he not so very much a monster willing to trade life away like chattel.

The dreams weave pretty impossible little things and he wakes ashamed, because some fantasies are even too unreal to ever be. Even if the fantasy is as simple as her giving into him without a fight and he, in return, giving into her and the night that passes is a shared thing, bent of the mutual exchange of a pleasure they both seek to give the other.

He wakes angry and annoyed rarely bothers trying to go back to sleep.

He ignores the looks of his fellows when he snaps at them, his temper short. He ignores his own exhaustion as he pushes forward, dedicating himself to hunting down every last Mudblood and Blood Traitor he can find and bring them in for a price. And when he walks through the woods he sometimes thinks he can catch the sweet scent of her perfume, brief like the memory of her fear.

What remains more permanent, scalded into the fabric of his mind, is the completeness of her disgust.

He smiles and pretends this does not bother him. There's no reason that it should. She is nothing to him and he, in return, is nothing to her.

* * *

Scabior remembers the moment when he realizes that she must still be alive, that she escaped the clutches of that mad witch and continued on to doubtlessly fight the good fight.

It is difficult to keep the robbery from a place like Gringotts a secret, even in a time like this when suppression of unfavorable news has it's most vice-like grip around the neck of the _Prophet_. He hears the rumors of whose vault it had been, hears the stories of the dragon and the desperate hope in peoples voices that _Harry Potter _was responsible for it, that _Harry Potter _is alive, still fighting, and all may not be lost just yet.

Because he is tired he quells their talk with a look and does not bother bringing them in for such talk, watches instead as they pale and scuttle away, like rodents fleeing the cat's claws.

The sight does not bring him as much pleasure as he feels it should.

He knows what side he is on, whom it is he serves, and he knows what side she is on, but these people who linger somewhere in the middle, too afraid to serve either cause, make his ire spike and impatience churn in his gut. But instead of thinking of them he lets his thoughts wander instead to a girl, a girl who is clever and lovely and who must have _must have _played such a very large part in that robbery.

She is alive and she is still fighting and suddenly his earlier fantasies of giving chase, of making her run and looking forward to the moment he is able to catch her rise up again, scrabbling for purchase, and he cannot deny the draw, the pull of whatever magic it is that has him in it's grip.

Scabior fears the Dark Lord, like any sensible person should. The power of that man, that monstrous wizard, is beyond compare. Though he has never seen him personally he imagines that Death clings to his robes like a lover, lingers by his side and reaps the souls that the Dark Lord gives to him like many endless gifts.

But where the Dark Lord is Harry Potter shall surely soon also be and where that stupid ugly boy is so too is she, loyal and lovely and brimming with strength he aches to touch.

So he follows too.

_This was never a love story. _


End file.
